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Hi, this is Lori Arriaga of Christian Women's Resources with this weeks edition of Words for the Week brought to you by Encouraging Audiobooks.

Today was the last day of our Virtuous Women's Retreat and I wanted to do something a little different at Words for the Week by sharing with you one of the inspirational workshops that was titled "A Christians Response to Halloween" since Halloween is next week in hopes to make it a holiday where you can take advantage of this opportunity we have as Christians to Witness for Jesus.

It was an incredible blessing to listen to all the wonderful speakers we had at the Virtuous Women's Retreat and I look forward to seeing what God is going to do next year. For those of you that have missed the women's retreat, you will still be able to access all the inspirational workshops as an mp3 download. I will be sure to let you know when they are available for you to access.

Be blessed as you listen to Bill Keller of www.liveprayer.com as he shared with us at the retreat and I pray that you will begin to use this holiday as a great way to Witness for Jesus as he talks about in his message and hopefully by next Spring it will be made into a legal Christian holiday.

This is Lori Arriaga of Christian Women's Resources and the Virtuous Women's Retreat, signing off now with this weeks edition of Words for the Week, brought to you by Encouraging Audiobooks.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Hi. This is Lori Arriaga with this weeks edition of Words for the Week a Christian Podcast brought to you by Encouraging Audiobooks.

With Christian Women’s Resources first online virtuous women’s retreat coming up next week I thought I’d share with you a devotional I did titled a Virtuous Woman.

A Virtuous Woman

”She is clothed with strength and dignity” (Proverbs 31:25a NIV)

A woman clothed with strength and dignity is one who fears the Lord. She allows Him to arm her with the strength she needs to fulfill the call on her life. She sets about her daily tasks with the Lord’s guidance. Her works make a difference in the lives around her, bringing her praise in the city and causing her husband and children to rise and call her blessed. The Proverbs 31 woman is often looked at as too idyllic and unachievable. Rightly so in our own strength which is why we must rely on God’s strength only and have a purposeful intent if we are to become a virtuous woman.

A woman of strength and dignity first has a purposeful intent to develop a strong relationship with her Lord. She knows only by His strength can she be the woman God calls her to be in every area of her life. This strength comes as she purposefully meditates on the living Word of God. The more she meditates on the Word and sees it at work in her life she begins to speak forth the Word in faith. As she speaks forth the Word in faith, she becomes the woman God calls her to be, a living epistle or message that gives hope and encouragement to others through her life testimony.

A woman of strength and dignity has a purposeful intent in her marriage to be the suitable helper God calls her to be. She views it as an honor and is devoted to and respects her husband. She purposefully prays the Word of God over him and works at keeping strong communication between them. She puts her husband before her children and ministry and makes it a point to understand and fulfill her husband’s physical needs. She knows this is only done through God as she puts her relationship with Him first enabling her to be the wife God calls her to be.

A woman of strength and dignity has a purposeful intent to train her children up in the Lord. She purposefully speaks forth the Word of God and His goodness all the days of their lives. She trains them through discipline before foolish behavior becomes a habit and instills in them respect for authority knowing it will help them be successful in life. She molds their spirits with love, not anger, setting an example to follow and showing humility when she fails. She knows this is only done through the strength she receives in her relationship with God.

Heavenly Father, I praise you and thank you for giving us the strength we need to accomplish the tasks you set before us as women, wives and mothers. Strengthen us according to your Word so it is the Lord who is my strength and my song in all I do. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.

Take away question to ponder – Are you intimidated by the Proverbs 31 woman of the bible? If so, I challenge you to clothe yourself with God’s strength and dignity instead to become the woman God has called you to be.

Be sure to stop by our website at www.christianwomensresources.com to learn more about our online Virtuous Womens Retreat that is free for anyone to attend that has an internet connection and speakers to listen to the wonderful lineup of 18 Inspirational speakers.

This is Lori Arriaga of Christian Women’s resources. I pray you become a woman of strength and dignity in the Lord and that your life is filled with God’s wonderful blessings. Signing off now with this weeks Words for the Week brought to you by Encouraging Audiobooks.

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Hi. This is Lori Arriaga of Christian Women's Resources with this weeks edition of Words for the Week brought to you by the Virtuous Women’s Retreat and Encouraging Audiobooks.

Today I want to share with you a little something I had wrote about “Transforming your Doubts to Professions of Faith.” I believe it ties in real well with our discussions on confidence and the book I have been reading by Joyce Meyer called “The Confident Woman”.

Do you find yourself doubting a lot or doubting your faith? I'm not talking about doubting that you are a child of God or for your salvation, but what I am talking about is: doubting the promises of God truly being for you to claim as your own. Whatever it is that begins our doubting whether it be some weakness or failure of ours as a wife, mother, homemaker, friend or business woman, the enemy loves to get us to focus on our failures and weaknesses so he can hinder our communion with God and ultimately our usefulness to the Kingdom.

When we doubt we are unstable and considered double-minded and cannot please God because it is our faith that pleases him not our fears. Anything that is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23) When we believe the lies the enemy whispers in our ears, it’s like fighting against the promises of God instead of fighting the good fight of faith. We then dishonor God’s character.

Too often we require we see God working in our lives before we believe in His promises and claim them as our own but “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. It’s not easy giving up our doubts though because they are a comfort to us whether we realize it or not. Our doubts always sympathize with our situation and so we begin to listen to them, join in with them and even indulge in them at times. I myself have indulged in awful thoughts in the past toward others that had done me wrong. I would dwell over how unkind they were to me and entertain all sorts of thoughts of how I could get back at them. Even though my indulgent thinking didn't make me happy, I found it very hard to stop those thoughts.

This is exactly what we tend to do with our doubts even though they make us unhappy. We listen to them, entertain them and indulge in them, and ultimately doubt God's care for us. We know he is a loving God and we believe His Word to be truth, but we somehow believe the enemies lies that we are too difficult a case for God to change us or that He chooses not to because he is probably fed up with us as much as we have messed up in our life time. We feel ashamed and unworthy especially when we have to ask for His forgiveness for the same thing over and over again.

I sure have felt that way about myself and of others before in the past even though God says “all things are possible with Him”. Our doubts are like a bad habit that is one of the hardest things to deny ourselves of especially if we’re not being transformed by the Word of God in our thoughts.

So what do we do in order to stop these doubts?

First, we must persist in turning from them, refusing to listen to them for even a moment.

We think we only are doubting ourselves because of our failures and feel if God chose to reject us, it would be fully deserved, but we are really doubting the Lord’s character - His faithfulness and willingness to love us unconditionally. We must continually remind ourselves that Jesus came to save, not the righteous, but sinners. Our sin, failures and unworthiness is the very reason why we CAN claim his love and care for us and believe in the promises of God for ourselves.

Second, realize we don’t have to feel confident to be confident and fully surrendering our doubts to Jesus just as any other sin or temptation. We can be confident because we are able to put our confidence in His Word instead of ourselves for our deliverance. Trusting the Lord to renew a steadfast spirit within us because God always take possession of a fully surrendered heart.

Third, we must choose whom we will serve (Josh 24:15) and profess our faith in the Word of God the moment doubts come knocking at our door. Making it a disciplined habit to take up the "sword of the spirit" and "shield of faith" so we are no longer live according to our feelings of fear and doubt. We can never completely hinder those feelings from coming but we can refuse to embrace them by professing our faith in Him, claiming the promises of God to be true instead. By holding fast to the professions of our faith without wavering we will cultivate a regular habit of believing his Word over our feelings and be able to enjoy the confident life God has for each one of us because he who has promised is faithful"

Heavenly Father, thank you for your unconditional love and care for us and sending Jesus on our behalf for the forgiveness of our sins. Thank you for your Word that is so full of wonderful promises for us to claim as our own and to put our confidence in. Renew a steadfast spirit within me with full confidence in you and help me to make it a habit to profess my faith through the Word of God the moment any doubts arise so I can enjoy the confident life you have purposed for me. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.

If you have allowed doubts to creep in that keep you from truly claiming the promises of God as your own and living a confident life, I pray you will stand them up against the Word of God today and start believing and claiming the Word over your feelings.

This is Lori Arriaga signing off now with this weeks Words for the Week. Sponsored by the Virtuous Women’s Retreat and Encouraging Audio Books.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Hi, this is Lori Arriaga with this weeks edition of Words for the Week, the Christian Podcast brought to you by the Virtuous Women’s Retreat and Encouraging Audiobooks.

I am going to continue on the theme of confidence this week. Today I want to talk about the 7 characteristics of a confident woman that I read about in Joyce Meyers book “The Confident Woman”. I believe it is good to remind ourselves of these 7 characteristics in order to better walk in Gods total confidence in all situations in our lives.

The 1st and foremost characteristic of a confident woman is that she knows she is loved by God unconditionally. She is rooted and established in love…she grasps how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ as it says in Eph. 3:17-18

The 2nd characteristic is she refuses to live in fear. She knows God did not give her a spirit of fear but of power of love and of a sound mind as it says in 2 Tim. 1:7

The 3rd characteristic is she is positive. She thinks about whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, she thinks about such things as it says in Phil. 4:8.

The 4th characteristic is she recovers from setbacks. She learns from them and presses on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called her heavenward in Christ Jesus as it says in Phil. 3:14.

The 5th characteristic is she avoids comparisons. She knows God does not show favoritism as it says in Rom. 2:11 and that she is fearfully and wonderfully made.

The 6th characteristic is she is a woman who takes action. Once again, she presses on toward the goal, not just the goal of making it to heaven, but the goal of living the full life in Christ God has called her to live in the here and now with the spirit of power, of love and a sound mind.

The 7th characteristic of a confident woman is she doesn’t live in “if only” or “what if”. Just as the boy gave his five small loaves of bread and two fish to Jesus and he multiplied it to feed 5,000, Jesus can do the same with our lives if we just give him what we have.

Whether you are a confident person or not, I pray that you have been blessed by these Words for the Week. God has given us his life giving Word that we can meditate on and stand on to claim as our own, giving us the confidence to be the women he has called us to be. Go now and be the woman of God He has called you to be this week.

This is Lori Arriaga signing off now with this weeks Words for the Week.

Sponsored by the Virtuous Women’s Retreat and Encouraging Audio Books.